While I was helping teach Karate class with one of my instructors today, he had everyone do a really good bodyweight warm up before the Karate movements. I changed it up a bit when he had me warm up the next two classes and here is what we did. The only difference is we use a rectangular pad instead of our hands for this warm up but your hands will work just as well.
Our dojo is in a gym with a full size basketball court. We had everyone line up on the log line on one side of the gym and they moved or ran to each quarter line doing the following.
- You start with your hands at waist height with palms down and then walk to the other end of the gym and back bringing your knees up to your hands. The key is keep your hands at the same height and not drop them to touch your knees.
- You start with your hands behind your butt and go across the gym and back touching you heels to hands, basically kicking your own butt.
- You start with both hands up in front of your body, chest height or higher, and then you walk across the gym and back, with straight legs touching your feet to your hands. This gives the hamstrings a really good stretch.
- You start at the one of the gym, run to the first quarter line, do five burpees, go to the center line and do five more, then the three quarter line and do five more, then to the far end with five more and then back all the way to where you started and do 10 more.
- For the last movements, your run to the first quarter line, sit on your butt and balance, with your legs and hands off the floor, then bring your knees to your chest five times, then go to the center, third and far end lines for five each and then back to the start line and do 15 reps.
This short warm up takes around five minutes or so and it really warms the body up for whatever you have planned next.
Leave a comment here if you try it out and let me know how it works for you.